I clutch my pen in one hand and press the paper against the wall to hold it flat. Now that I’m making the decision, a sliver of doubt cuts its way into my heart. Is fighting the Red Baron really the best option here? As Scorpia said, even if we succeed, Leonis may kill Pol in retaliation. Am I willing to let that happen? Am I willing to never see my brother again, to let my last memory of him before he was infected be the one time I ever raised a hand against him? Am I willing to give up my chance to ever apologize for that mistake?

And yet, if I don’t, I’ll be choosing to sacrifice an entire planet’s worth of people. People who welcomed us when we were young, sheltered us when so many others turned us away. If I do that, there’s no turning back from becoming the person Titan nearly turned me into.

Either way, I will be giving up a piece of myself. My decision will haunt me for the rest of my days. One more in the string of impossible, terrible choices I’ve been forced to make. I take a deep breath, close my eyes for a moment, and open them again. I write.

Scorpia gathers the papers and unfurls the first. She licks her lips, hesitating briefly before reading it out loud.

“Save Nibiru,” she reads. Hope fills me—but as she lets the paper flutter to the table, I see my own neat handwriting printed on the paper. Scorpia grabs the next one. “Stop them,” she says, and drops that one as well. I recognize the blocky handwriting as Drom’s, and faint hope blossoms inside me, though I try to keep it contained. She squints at the next one. “Stop Red Baron,” she reads, and drops it. The writing is shaky, confusing me for a moment before I realize it must have been written left-handed. It has to belong to Lyre, the only one clever enough to try to conceal her handwriting. I resist the urge to glance at her, though pride surges in my heart. It seems she finally decided to follow what she believes in.

So that leaves Scorpia. I stare at her, wondering if the others have figured out that the last vote is hers as well, wondering what’s running through her head. She takes her time unfurling the last piece of paper and pretending to read it, though she already knows what the answer will be.

Rather than reading it out loud, she looks up at me, a hint of a smile on her lips though there’s worry in her eyes.

“It’s settled,” she says. “We stop them.”